Salvaging
by Loki's Scribe
Summary: A few weeks after he ran away from home, Sirius and James break into Grimmauld Place to pack up a few necessary pieces of Sirius's life.


_Characters not mine._

_(This would not get out of my head. Wish I knew why.)_

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Breaking into Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place was a _bitch_.

Sirius had known it would be, because over the years he had watched his father carefully arrange things so that this would be so. There were nasty spells pieced together like latticing up and down the severe walls, doorknobs that bit if you didn't shake them properly, and keys that couldn't be replicated by any means. And two weeks was probably long enough for the old man to have had all the locks changed, too.

Really, all the place was lacking in order to give off the air of crazy paranoia was a line of exploding dustbins, and those had been tried at some point. Reggie's cat had turned out to take obscene pleasure in setting them off at the arrival of wizards she didn't like.

Sirius wasn't entirely certain who his father was trying so hard to keep out, although he occasionally had a sneaking suspicion that the old man had often wanted to replace the locks and be done with it one day while his wife was out shopping.

As such, the Black family home was as close to magic-proof as it was reasonably possible to get.

But since it was invisible to Muggles, one thing Orion Black _had_ forgotten was how to proof his home against perfectly normal, nonmagical break-ins. It wasn't as though basic lockpicking was a skill known only to those not in possession of a wand.

"This is stupid," James said.

They were standing in the circle of light provided by the streetlamp on the corner of Grimmauld Place, looking at the space between Numbers Eleven and Thirteen, which would only flower into a home once they were close enough that the place recognized two young wizards who knew it was there.

"Of course it's stupid, Prongs," Sirius answered, cocking his head slightly. "When has that ever stopped us before?"

James closed his eyes. Sirius watched him take a few deep breaths and tried not to roll his eyes. This had all the hallmarks of Prongs about to try degrees on him. Sirius had never been good at degrees. There was what his parents thought and there was what he'd figured out for himself. Didn't matter how wide or narrow the chasm between them was in places, it was always there.

"This is could-get-us-arrested stupid," James pointed out when he opened his eyes again.

"Is that all?" Sirius grinned. "Come _on_, James, do I have to turn into a dog to remind you?"

James glowered.

"That was get-us-killed stupid," Sirius added helpfully. "And, you know, the pieces left sent to Azkaban. Where they would get furry every full moon."

James punched him, but on the arm and without much enthusiasm. "Don't let Moony hear you say that."

Sirius snorted. James had a selective memory about certain things, and one of them was the list of possible consequences of some action after they had actually gotten away with it. All Sirius had done was repeat what had come out of Remus's mouth when he'd found out about their animagi with a little added color. But James didn't want to hear about past stupid ideas that worked in the face of this one, so he just said, "Can you get me on the roof of Number Eleven?"

James fingered the edge of his broom. They'd only brought the one, because if Mr. or Mrs. Potter woke up in the early hours of the morning to find both boys missing and two brooms gone, they would reasonably assume they were getting in to trouble. One broom was unlikely to get them that far. "Number Eleven?" he repeated.

"It's the closest one to my room. Or was. I don't know."

James nodded and swung onto the broom, hovering about three feet off the ground with an ease Sirius had never quite mastered. Sirius stared at him a moment, then took a deep breath. This had been his idea, of course, it was just difficult for two sixteen-year-olds to go anywhere on a small sporting broom without one of them hanging on to the other. There were few people that Sirius was all that interested in hanging on to, and physically speaking, James was not one of them.

Still, he climbed on behind his friend.

Even with the extra weight, James maneuvered a broom like it was part of him, and it was less than a minute before they touched down on the roof of Sirius's unfortunate Muggle neighbors, and by that time Number Twelve had morphed into view.

Sirius shoved himself off of the broom and landed with the thump of heavy biker boots. James came to a much lighter landing and rolled his eyes. "We are so getting caught."

"Nah. There's an attic in between us and the house, and we ought to be over the oldest daughter's room. She moved out a few weeks ago."

"Oh."

Sirius rolled his eyes again. James had seemed much more willing to enter into the spirit of the thing back in his room. Break in, ghost out, and never have to deal with Sirius's shit for family in person? It was an excellent idea, or had been until James was actually on a roof in Grimmauld Place, wondering what the local Muggles thought Sirius was.

Sirius just walked from the neighbor's roof to the Black's, because this wasn't weird to him. James followed, trying to make as little noise as possible and actually making more than Sirius in the process. "And when your family hears us?"

Sirius looked over the edge of the roof and shrugged. "Reggie'll assume it's the house elf and the house elf'll assume it's Reggie. Dad'll call up to one of them, and neither of them is going to investigate. And the reason we went on Sunday is because on Sunday nights Mum's at either Mrs. Lestrange or Mrs. Rosier's. It's half past midnight am now, but if Mrs. Rosier broke out the firewhiskey we've got until almost two."

James nodded. "Sirius?"

"Yeah?"

"How often have you done this?"

"Whenever I didn't feel like listening to Mum wake up the entire house when I got back home," Sirius admitted. "Easier letting her wonder about her memory sometimes than listen to Dad bitch and Reggie beg me to put up with them all more often in order to spare the world our family drama."

He examined his window box. Nothing had ever grown in it, because Sirius liked his privacy and never bothered watering anything himself, but it had been solidly built around the same time as the house, and just as his father spent the occasional afternoon fussing over the spellwork on the house, every once in awhile Sirius checked the wood to be sure the box would still support his weight.

"Hunh," James said.

Sirius felt along the edge of the roof for a handhold. His dad had been aware of the possibility of something descending upon the place from above, at least, so this part of Sirius's misadventures had always involved trying to stay one step ahead of Black paranoia, and knowing precisely what would set off the spells that would shake the roof and so on. But again, his father had presumed that whoever was up there would be spellcasting.

At least out thinking one member of the family had always been as simple as figuring out how to do something without a wand.

Sirius found a handhold he liked and looked up at James with a grin. "Wish me luck."

And then he swung off the roof.

"_Sirius_," James hissed, and reached out to stop him.

He got a good handful of leather jacket sleeve, too, but Sirius wasn't dropping _that_ far. The old window box wouldn't be able to take it, and after a moment Sirius let go with his left hand and tried to shake James off. "Let go."

James craned over and saw where Sirius's feet were planted firmly on the window box, and Sirius could see his friend relaxing. "Oh. All right." But it was a moment before his grip relaxed enough that Sirius could tug out and crouch down to peer at the window latch.

With James still on the roof, he could probably get back on the roof if he needed to, but for Sirius this had always been the no-going-back point. He might be strong enough to grab the roof and pull himself up again, but he wasn't going to get a foothold from the glass on his windowpane, and he'd only have one shot. He knew he wasn't going to like the result of a four-story fall if he landed in a position to survive it.

He got as good a grip as was to be expected on the window casing and then let go with his right hand, too, crouching down to stare at the latch.

This was always the place where he wished his Dad was a little less paranoid, because most ways to break in the Muggle way involved doing actual damage to the glass. He tried to keep the latch unturned to make his life easier, but he couldn't always keep Kreacher out of the place and sure enough, this time it was turned.

When he was eleven, Sirius's contingency plan was to yell Regulus's name until his brother ignored the sacred privacy of a brother's space and came running in. When he was eleven, "I was playing on the roof and Mum locked me out," was still a reasonable excuse. He'd come some way in five years, though, and he was rather pleased with all the ways he'd come up with to get around the general magic ban within three feet of the upper story windows.

The windows had never actually been replaced, because upkeep on them with magic and magic-proofing meant that wood didn't start creaking and metal never really corroded. It was one thing Sirius had always relied on, but it was only skin deep. One afternoon when Sirius was thirteen and no one was scheduled to call on his parents, Sirius had climbed onto the window box and spent an hour carefully removing the screws on the metal decorations at the base of the top sash. These had been shiny and in very good condition, but the wood underneath had been rotten, and so he'd simply removed as much of it as he'd dared and stuck the metal decoration back on with quite a lot of spellotape.

Now, he removed it and slid his hand into the hole he'd created three summers before. He couldn't get his knuckle through, anymore, but it was enough for him to move the latch if he was patient and worked it over a little at a time.

Up on the roof, James was starting to fidget.

"Oh, come on, Prongs, it's not as though the neighbors are going to look across the street and see us," he hissed, glancing up at where he could just see James looking around surreptitiously. "And anyway," he added, with a sniff, "if they did, they'd just see that it was the eldest Black boy sneaking back in when his parents had gone to bed. Got a friend with him, too."

"Oh, really?"

"In my expreience, people think of any reason not to call the coppers if they can," Sirius answered. He'd spent an amazing amount of time sneaking about Muggle London and discovering this, first for the thrill of rebellion and then simply to get away.

The latch clicked when he finally got it turned all the way, and Sirius moved from there to the inside pocket of his jacket, where he'd packed as long and thin a strip of metal as he'd been able to find. He'd spelled it to stay extra stiff and not quite so brittle, because his father hadn't thought to defend against a magical _stick_ and Sirius did have a few advantages over the average Muggle burglar. A working knowledge of the house, for one. He had to work to get it wedged under the window, of course. This was another several minute task, and James continued to get fidgety above him.

Finally, though, he was in, and stood up slowly, grabbing the roof instead of the window once again. James immediately reached down and wrapped one hand around his right wrist and the other around his left elbow to brace him.

Sirius wasn't going to object to the help. "I'm fine," he said, and stepped on the piece of metal. "Make sure to grab the broom when you come in."

The window sash was heavy, and it wouldn't have moved it more than an inch or two, but Sirius was able to lean down, pocket his useful bit of metal, take hold of the window, and pull it upwards enough that a teenage boy could slip in. Then it was just a matter of crouching down and backing in as quickly as he could without actually falling.

James followed with much less expertise.

Sirius didn't want to shout, or grab him, or do anything particularly startling, because they were four stories up. But, well, they were four stories up, and he opened the window as wide as it would go and lurked beside it, just in case he had to prevent a disaster.

But while James was not experienced in the art of Muggle break-ins, he was a Quidditch player who was experienced with doing finicky things at some height. He passed Sirius the broom, and managed to swing the rest of the way in, landing with a thump that made the both of them wince.

"Regulus?" Mr. Black's voice called up the steps.

The answer was a muffled swear word, and then there was silence. Sirius relaxed. His father had probably just assumed his brother had rolled out of bed. Merlin only knew what Regulus had thought, but there didn't seem to be an investigation in the offering.

James stood up and looked around with some interest. He'd never been in Sirius's room before, because that would involve a blood traitor getting past the front entryway. Sirius hadn't been eager to show off his burglary skills just to get a friend in the house.

The room, however, was precisely how Sirius had left it. He'd papered the horrible wallpaper over with pictures of Muggle motorbikes and girls and Quidditch, only one of which had been met with any approval, and his school trunk was open in case there was anything he needed to actually get out of it and use. Sirius never unpacked, even little things like the pictures of his friends, because that would mean it would take longer for him to get out of there at the end of every summer. Even his bed was still unmade.

Sirius sighed. This was it.

Two weeks ago, he'd shown up at the Potters' at three in the morning with nothing but his wand and a change of Muggle clothes. He'd been met with some confusion by Mr. and Mrs. Potter, but they'd let him in for as long as he needed to stay. Mrs. Potter had even wrapped him in a hug Sirius was afraid he'd never get out of when he'd admitted he had no intention of ever going home. But there were certain things he needed, like his schoolwork, and certain things he just didn't want to leave in the possession of his parents, like the small box of photos and things from Andromeda or his friends. Things that would be difficult or impossible to replace.

Mrs. Potter had offered to go speak to his mother about this matter, but Sirius had done his best to convince her just how bad an idea it was.

He packed up his clothes as quietly as he could and shut the trunk on them, then looked around and tried to decide if there was anything left. He'd covered as much of what his parents had put in the room, of course, but that was merely so he didn't have to see it or think about it. That was just papered over. He'd never realized he kept what was really _his_ packed easily in a trunk to make things easier to run.

No, trunk and clothes were it.

"Well, that was easy," he said to James.

James shook his head. "It was stupid," he said. "Anything in there that can't actually be replaced?"

"Yes," Sirius said flatly. "Getting it out of my parents' house."

James looked doubtfully at him and shook his head. "All right."

"Come on, Prongs, just because Moony isn't around to do the worrying—"

"This isn't Hogwarts. This isn't just something we're gonna get hauled in front of Dumbledore for," James pointed out. "This is real, and its dangerous, and I thought you wanted out. This is you going back somewhere they don't want you, but somewhere a lot of things think you ought to stay."

Sirius snorted. "I don't doubt they'd chase me back out if they found me here."

James reached out for him, and Sirius managed to keep him from actually touching him by simply going very stiff. James sighed. His family was small and tight and uncomplicated. Sirius knew that he didn't understand this. "How do we get that out?" James asked.

"Levitate it."

"And us?"

"You take the broom."

"You?"

"I'm going out the front door."

James gaped at him for a moment, and then managed to pull himself together. "_Why_?"

"Just something I've got to do."

They levitated the trunk out, although they did drop it that last three feet or so, and then Sirius made sure James got into the air before he closed his window again. Sooner or later someone would notice the fallen decoration and fix it, he supposed.

Then he went to the room on the other end of the hall.

Regulus answered, but he mercifully kept his voice down. "_Sirius_?"

"Just a ghost."

Reggie scowled. "It'd better be. Mum'd kill you if she was in, you know that?"

"I don't doubt it." Sirius wondered, for a moment or two, if they were exaggerating about their mother's reaction or not. Oh, well, it didn't matter anymore. "Dad in his office?"

"Like always. What are you doing here?"

"I'm gone. I thought I owed you the goodbye."

Regulus's jaw worked for a moment, and then he just shook his head. "Just fuck off before Kreacher comes along, Sirius. I've known you were gone for five and a half years."

Then he closed the door.

Sirius was accustomed to getting down his steps without disturbing anyone, too, and he got out the front door without further incident and joined James under the lamplight at the end of the block. For one mad moment he wondered if Regulus were watching, but that didn't matter anymore, either.

"So you're still in one piece." James passed him the handle of the trunk. "So what's the plan?"

"Walk a couple of blocks, hail the Knight Bus, and beg your parents' forgiveness."

"You've got it. We're still alive and no one's likely to complain," James said drily.

Sirius blinked. It always shocked him how easy things were with James's parents, but he shook it off. "All right, then, Prongs. Let's go home."

James nodded and started off, but Sirius glanced back at the space between Numbers Eleven and Thirteen again. _Home_. He repeated the word to himself, and grinned.

He was finally headed there.


End file.
